


Journalistic Ethics

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Florida Panthers, Journalism, M/M, Minnesota Wild, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2174220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Russo may have known something but didn't blog about it, and one time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journalistic Ethics

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this story is about how much I respect Michael Russo as a journalist. He stalks the Wild so I don’t have to! He knows things, not like poor silly baby Chad. Russo’s the best. If you’re at all interested in the Wild I highly recommend following him on twitter.
> 
> He recently dared Mikko Koivu into doing the ice bucket challenge! Other Wild players thought Mikko wouldn't do it, but Russo called him out, and Mikko's huffy alpha pride wouldn't let that stand! It was beautiful!
> 
> Thanks to Bess for betaing this, and encouraging it from the start, and putting up with my totally reasonable amount of feelings about James Sheppard! <3

1

Mike began to stop being a hockey fan when he was sixteen. That’s when he started to write about sports.

Becoming a reporter doesn’t mean you stop caring, but things change. There’s a different kind of distance, and a different kind of closeness. As a reporter there has to be professional boundaries, and journalistic integrity. It doesn’t matter what Mike feels, he’s responsible for painting an accurate picture of what’s going on. It’s important to be honest and objective.

At the same time, being a reporter means having a much better view of the action than the average fan. He spends time around the team, he gets to know people. He has a lot conversations with these guys, on and off the record. He sees a lot, and writes about some of it.

Mike’s first big job is covering the Florida Panthers for the Sun-Sentinel. As a beat reporter, he covers the team day in and day out. He travels when they’re on the road, he goes to practice, he talks to anyone who has time for him. He always has a lot of questions. It’s his job to tell the Sun-Sentinel readers all about the Florida Panthers, both the team on the ice, and the organization that puts that team together.

It’s not Mike’s job to speculate on Stephen Weiss’s sex life. It really isn’t. Not even close.

Mike’s a journalist. It’s all he’s ever wanted to be, since he was a newspaper boy growing up. He’s come a long way since then, which means he cannot speculate about Stephen Weiss’s sex life because he’s a professional in good standing.

He won’t say anything about Weiss’s sex life. He won’t say anything about how close Weiss and Horton may or may not be. There’s nothing to report, nothing that’s been said to him on the record, nothing that the reading public needs to know.

There’s nothing on the record, and nothing off the record. It’s pure speculation, but if Mike was a betting man…

Then he might say that it could be worth speculating on Stephen Weiss’s sex life. He might say that, if he cared more about selling newspapers than about professional pride and integrity. He’s not into collecting gossip. He’s into hockey. So he isn’t going to speculate, he isn’t going to guess. He’s better than that.

2

Mike doesn’t know anything for sure, but he’s got a feeling in his gut that there’s _something._

Mike got to know James Sheppard when Shep was a gangly nineteen-year-old who hadn’t finished growing into his hands or his feet. Sheppard watched the first game of the season in the press box because his work visa hadn’t gone through. They hadn’t started it early enough because it had seemed pretty unlikely that Sheppard would stay with the big team. At the time, Mike questioned whether keeping Sheppard up was a good idea, but it’s what happened.

That was the first question, but they kept on coming. Over the next few years, Mike spends a lot of nights in the press box with James Sheppard, more than either of them really want to.

One of the neat things about covering a team day in and day out, year after year, is watching players develop. Mike remembers when Mikko Koivu was a rookie on the fourth line; now he’s a leader, a Captain. James Sheppard never really moved past the fourth line. He spent some time on the third, he got shifted to wing, he got benched, he spent time in the coach’s doghouse — first Lemaire’s, then Richard’s, which meant he watched a lot of games from the pressbox as a healthy scratch. He never developed into the player the Wild thought they drafted based on his numbers in the Q, but he did grow up. That’s what kids do—they grow up, and figure out who they are, even if they never put it together to be more than mediocre hockey players. There’s something special about that too, the process of maturation from a kid to a young man: it’s just that Mike’s a hockey journalist, he isn’t paid to write stories about anyone _finding themselves_. He writes stories about people playing hockey, and if someone’s performing poorly, he has to write about it.

Sometimes he does feel bad about it. Sheppard’s a good kid. Well spoken, accountable. He hasn’t lived up to expectations, but really, the expectations were never fair. If James Sheppard had developed into an All-Star, the Wild still would have been terrible, just not quite as much. 

Then Sheppard loses a whole year of hockey to an offseason knee injury. Officially he’s suspended by the Wild so they don’t have to account for his cap hit, but he’s still around, recovering in the Cities. He’s in the press box night after night, with Harding, who has a bum knee of his own, and a rotation of other teammates who are injured or scratched. Most nights Mike hardly notices him, but he’s there.

This is the first time Mike’s ever really thought about James Sheppard: well rounded human being, instead of James Sheppard: hockey player. It’s disconcerting. Mike suspects that this is the first time Sheppard’s tried _being_ more than a hockey player, and he seems awfully shaky at it.

If Mike had met Sheppard somewhere else, if he was an intern at the paper, or one of the annoying college kids hanging out in a coffee shop where Mike was trying to write, then maybe they could have had a conversation like regular human beings.

Mike could have said, “Hey, it seems like you’re having a rough time, is there anything you want to talk about?”

Mike doesn’t know what Sheppard would say. Their relationship is that of a reporter and a subject. The questions Mike’s had to ask have mostly been about Sheppard’s lack of scoring.

There should be someone else to give Sheppard some guidance. It isn’t Mike’s place, but Koivu or Bruno should be talking to him, and probably are out of Mike’s line of sight. Mike does respect their leadership. It’s just…

Mike has questions. He wants to know if Sheppard has friends that aren’t on the team. He wants to know if Sheppard really did enjoy spending the first month of his injury with his mother or if that’s just a line he fed to the press. He wants to know what Sheppard will do if this isn’t an injury he can come back from. He wants to know if that’s something Sheppard’s thought about.

Mike shouldn’t make wild (ha) guesses about a player’s personal life, but James Sheppard isn’t a hockey player right this minute, not really. He’s an injured non-roster player. That doesn’t really make it any better.

They get close to it once.

It’s after Sheppard’s started skating again, Mike’s trying to put together an update for the paper. Sheppard probably won’t come back this year—even if he’s ready, the team’s too close to the cap, but there’s a chance he could play in Houston.

Sheppard says all the right things, gives Mike the quotes he needs, but then they don’t stop talking. Maybe they’re both bored. Maybe neither of them have anything better to do. They get to talking about next season, off the record, just conversation. Sheppard says again that he’s feeling good, that he’s looking forward to playing. If Mike had to bet, Sheppard will get his first taste of the AHL in the fall. Mike hopes he likes Houston.

The minors would be a pretty big change for a kid who, justifiably or not, came into the league at nineteen. 

“Have you thought about what it will be like living somewhere else?” He doesn’t think this would be an interesting story, but he’s honestly curious. “You must have gotten pretty used to the Cities over the past few years?”

“Yeah, I guess, I mean…” Sheppard shrugs. Mike doesn’t know what he means.

“You have buddies, people here right?”

“I guess? Yeah. Some of those.”

Mike knows there’s something he isn’t seeing. He’s sure that there’s more here, that Sheppard isn’t simply a nice kid who got dealt a rough hand. He can feel it in his gut, a reporter’s instinct to keep asking questions.

“Anyone special you think would go down to Houston with you?” Mike asks.

Sheppard freezes for a moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t have that figured out yet.”

God, Mike wants to ask...he doesn’t even know how he’d phrase it. It isn’t a question he could ask.

Mike has spent a lot time with this kid. Time to notice a lot of little things. If Sheppard isn't straight...that might explain a lot of the awkward pauses and empty spaces. If Mike had to guess...

But he doesn't have to guess. And he isn't here to speculate. But he'd like to know. He wants to make sense of Sheppard.

These kids spend their whole lives trying to get to the NHL, and like, Sheppard made it, he’s here, good for him. Mike wouldn’t say that Sheppard’s a success, or living the dream, whatever that’s supposed to mean. That isn’t the narrative Mike sees. He sees a young man who worked really hard to get to where he thought he wanted to be, only for it to not turn out the way he thought it would be. These kids spend their whole lives trying to get to the NHL, and Mike’s pretty sure they miss some other life skills along the way.

Mike can’t come up with a way to coax Sheppard into saying anything about himself, and they wind up talking about the weather in Texas. Mike hopes that someday he gets to find out what goes on in James Sheppard’s head, but it isn’t going to be today.

The odds that he gets to hear this story first hand and be the one to share it with the world go down when Sheppard gets dealt to the Sharks. It’s probably for the best. Sheppard needs a fresh start, and the Wild don’t know what to do with him anymore. He was never going to be what they wanted him to be, and now there’s a chance for him to succeed as what he actually is.

It takes some time, but eventually it seems like Sheppard does settle in with the Sharks. Mike doesn’t have a lot of reasons to write about Sheppard any more. He’s not the Wild’s concern, and bringing him up doesn’t do much to please the reading audience in Minnesota, but Mike’s still interested in the kid’s story. He’s playing in the NHL, which is all he really wanted. 

Mike hopes he’s figured out the rest of it too.

3

When Matt Hackett makes his NHL debut, Mike isn’t thinking about the kid’s social life. He’s thinking about how there’s this kid who came in a minute into the game after Harding got hurt who’s then perfect for the next fifty-nine minutes. Thirty-four shots, thirty-four saves, the game’s a 2-1 win for the Wild, the only goal against coming when Harding was still in the net. Matt Hackett makes one hell of an NHL debut.

He asks the young guys who knew Hackett from the Aeros about the goalie and gets some good quotes. Scandella especially has good things to say.

As a reporter it helps to be able to read body language, and Mike’s pretty good at it. Scandella and Hackett are interesting, close in a way that doesn’t strictly read like the usual way hockey players can get weird about each other. It seems like it might be something more than that, if Mike was going to speculate.

But he doesn’t speculate. He just wants to do his job. Hackett gets sent back to Houston when Harding is healthy again, and Mike forgets about it. 

He’s up again for a few days in January while Scandella is down in the minors, hopefully getting his game in order. Mike wishes he knew what made Scandella’s game fall off the way it did. A lot of the Wild’s plummet was regression, but Scandella had been playing strong hockey early in the season, then that stopped.

Mike’s been following hockey for his whole life, he’s been writing about it since he was sixteen, and there’s still an element of mystery and randomness in player development. There are always going to be ups and downs, and it isn't always easy to explain why. You see what happens on the ice, and sometimes that answers everything. Other times you get stuck, and you have to wonder if there's something else, something personal that isn't getting talked about going on. It doesn’t matter how good of a hockey mind you are, sometimes players don’t turn out the way it seems they should. 

Hackett goes back and forth between the AHL and the NHL a few more times before the end of the year. He’s there in February when Scandella turns twenty-two. Mike wouldn’t have known this, but there are some jokes in the locker room. It’s bawdy humor off the record that Mike would never think of repeating, but it’s interesting to see how Scandella flushes and Hackett smirks when celebration plans are brought up. 

Hackett’s back for a longer stretch of games in April, and that’s when Mike seems to get his vague suspicions confirmed.

It happens in Arizona. The Wild played the night before in Colorado. They lost 7-1. Hackett got pulled after thirty-five minutes and four goals. It wasn’t all on him though, Harding let in three more, and the whole team played like crap in front of them.

The Wild practiced, because you need a tough practice after a game like that, then Mike went back to the hotel to write. Teams and media types stay at the same hotel in Arizona. That’s what happens when the arena is in the middle of nowhere. Mike goes out in the courtyard to get some work done. Minnesota early in March is still freezing, he wants to take advantage of the hot desert weather. He settles in a table tucked out of the way, with enough shade to stop the glare so he can see his screen. 

He's already settled in when Hackett and Scandella come down to the courtyard. They walk right past him, but they must not have seen him, because they stick around and talk. 

Mike isn’t trying to overhear. It’s just...he’s curious. He’s a reporter, he wants to know what’s going on. He doesn’t try to pick out individual words, but he has sharp ears, and they’re talking loudly.

Mike just listens.

“No, but like, why the fuck does it matter?” Hackett asks, presumably picking up the middle of an earlier conversation. 

“I don’t know,” Scandella says. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure I care. But you could just tell me? Then I’d know and I wouldn’t have to wonder and…”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Yes it does.”

“No it doesn’t," Hackett says. "If I fuck anyone else it’s because you’re up here and I’m not.”

Mike shouldn’t be hearing any of this. If he gets up and leaves now he’ll only draw attention to himself and create a problem.

“Yeah, so that means it has something to do with me.”

“It has something to do with your absence.”

“Same difference,” Scandella says.

“Not really.”

“But like, if it doesn’t matter why won’t you just tell me?”

“Dunno. I guess I don’t want to.”

“That’s fucking bullshit,” Scandella says, loudly. 

It seems like they aren’t trying to keep their voices down. This isn’t the sort of conversation they should be having in public. Mike has no idea what they’re thinking, arguing like this where anyone could overhear. They probably aren’t thinking at all.

“If it matters so much to you we can just stop,” Hackett says.

Then it’s quiet for a long moment, long enough to make Mike wonder if they’ve wised up and moved on. He’s just about to check when he hears something.

He thinks it’s Scandella saying, “No.” He’s quiet now, Mike can’t be sure.

Someone sighs, or maybe that’s just the wind.

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter,” Scandella says. "We're just whatever. We're nothing. I don't care, because it's not like we matter. I..."

If Scandella says anything to finish the sentence it's too soft for Mike to hear. They're quiet for a while. Mike isn't sure what he should do. 

"I'm gonna go back upstairs. I'll see you later?" Scandella says. 

Hackett doesn't say anything. He must nod or something, because Mike hears footsteps, and sees Scandella walking across the other edge of the courtyard. 

Mike tries to go back to his writing, but it's hard to concentrate. After a few minutes Hackett gets up and leaves as well. 

Mike doesn't know what to do now. 

This is a little bit different. Mike has more than suspicions. He _knows_ there’s something going on. He doesn’t know the details, but he knows the questions he could ask to get there. It’s interesting and he wants to know more.

He isn’t going to do anything, not now anyway. It isn’t affecting the team on the ice. It wouldn’t be a hockey story, it would be a human interest scandal, which isn’t Mike’s beat. If there’s a point where he thinks this becomes relevant to the business of the Minnesota Wild winning or losing hockey games he’ll start asking questions. Until then, he’s going to leave it alone.

It never becomes a story. The lockout happens. Scandella and Hackett are both in Houston. Mike is covering the negotiations, and the Gophers, keeping busy. He’s happy when the NHL starts up again. It’s good to get back on his beat.

Scandella’s hurt at the start of the season, then gets in the lineup for six lackluster games with the Wild before getting sent back to the Aeros to get his game in order. Out of sight, out of mind. Mike has an NHL team to cover, and Scandella’s staying in the minors for now. Mike isn’t sure that makes sense given the third pairing struggles, but the cap is a concern, and who knows. Scandella wouldn’t be the solution to this team’s problems.

The Wild’s eternal goalie drama goes on. Hackett’s called up. He does well when he gets an opportunity to play. So does Kuemper. Mike bets they're going to move one of their young goalies at the deadline, but he wouldn't feel comfortable saying which. A strong argument could be made either way.

In the end the deal is Hackett, Larsson, a second and a first to Buffalo for Jason Pominville.

It’s a significant trade, a big story that isn’t over yet, not until Pominville re-signs or not, not until it’s clearer how the prospects pan out. Mike’s going to be answering questions about whether it’s a good trade or not for a long time going forward, but right now he needs to figure out if the Sabres are keeping any salary, and just how close to the cap this puts the Wild.

Hackett going makes it much more likely that whatever it was with him and Scandella will be another story Mike is never going to write.

Mike would be interested if management knows about whatever it is that's happened between Hackett and Scandella, and whether that had anything to do with choosing to trade Hackett over Kuemper. He's seen both goalies play, and he thinks Fletcher made a good call, but he wonders if there wasn't any other consideration. He certainly hopes not.

Mike might pay a bit closer attention to Scandella when he gets called up before the playoffs — just a bit more, the kid is already a storyline, stepping up in a big way at an opportune time. Marco seems alright. A lot better than before actually.

Mike wishes he could ask questions, but knows he can't. He got into journalism because he's a naturally curious guy. He likes finding all the answers. Sometimes he can't. All he can do is guess, and move on to another subject, unsatisfied. 

4

Mike isn’t sure when he started to suspect that Parise and Suter might be more than just good friends. If he had to put a date on it he’d guess, maybe…the third of July.

This is before they’ve signed, at the height of #parisewatch. Mike plays paparazzi, and intercepts Parise at the airport to ask a few things. There’s something there in the way Parise answers questions about talking to Suter as he makes his decision that Mike can’t pin down. (Later, a month or so into the season, Mike realizes this is just how Parise gets when he talks about Suter; there’s something different about his tone or his expression, kind of softer, maybe sweeter.)

Mike gets more sure during the lockout when Suter keeps skating with the group in the Cities instead of returning to Madison. They leave together, and arrive together, which isn’t that weird, a lot of guys carpool. They talk a lot, but they’re friends, that’s why they signed together, right?

As the season starts, Mike sees more and more things that convince him that Parise and Suter might be a couple. They keep on arriving and leaving together. They’re definitely close. It isn’t surprising—they’d have to be close, or they wouldn’t have decided to play together. That isn’t the kind of move you’d pull with someone who you didn’t like a lot.

The Wild play the Predators early in the season, and Mike has even more questions after seeing how Shea Weber goes out of his way to finish his checks on Parise. There’s definitely a story here. He can only see hints of the outline, but it seems to be a pretty interesting love story.

At least it would be a love story in this market. They might write it up as something else in Nashville. Journalism is supposed to be objective, and it is, to a degree, but it’s hard to maintain that separation when romance is involved. Mike’s never had a chance to cover a romance. He wonders if he’d be good at it.

But it isn’t his job to be a gossip columnist, it’s his job to cover the Wild, and he’s very good at that.

It’s a shortened season, with a lot of games in not a lot of days. Mike starts to get used to the latest version of the Minnesota Wild. Parise sits on the bench for pregame visualization. As the season wears on, Suter loosens up and starts telling jokes in scrums. There are a lot of rookies this year, learning good habits from Parise and Suter and Koivu. The team’s younger than it has been, and better too, or at least it has more potential. 

Some things stay the same. The Wild still have an awfully hard time scoring goals. The goaltending situation continues to be a story. Mike can’t think of another team in the league who has had such constant uncertainty in net. He has enough to write about even without Parise and Suter’s grand romance, if there even is such a thing.

The closest to feeling sure Mike ever gets is after Suter gets hurt in a late season game against the Blues. He leaves the ice in the first, tries to come back in the second, but doesn’t finish the game. Afterwards they say he’s going to be fine, but there isn’t anything else they could say, they need him too badly for anything else to be true.

The Wild have gotten shutout in their past four games, and have been an absolute mess. They want to be ramping up for the playoffs, and instead it seems like they’re falling apart.

Parise’s postgame is interesting. Mike’s already gotten to know what to expect from him after a loss—eyes down, a little bit fidgety, quiet. Parise’s obviously frustrated—the whole team is fed up with how snakebitten they’ve been. Mike isn’t the one to ask about Suter’s injury, but he does pay extra close attention to Parise’s poise in answering the question. He doesn’t know anything yet. He hopes that Suter is alright. It’s all standard answers, Parise doesn’t look up from his feet, doesn’t say anything meaningful, but he churns out a few quotes Mike can probably use. There isn’t anything to see. So then why does Mike feel like he’s missing something?

Time will tell. Mike know that this is a long game. For Parise and Suter this is year one of matching thirteen year contracts. Mike has time to piece this together. At some point in the next thirteen years, his suspicious will be either invalidated or confirmed. He needs to be patient. For now he’ll focus on how Parise and Suter are both playing hockey. All of the personal stuff can wait.

5

Mike didn’t know what to expect from Nino Niederreiter. There are questions about him coming out of Long Island. Mike doesn’t like listening to gossip, but the kid did ask for a trade, and had a horrible first year in the NHL. Mike knows he doesn’t have all of the details of what went down, but he has some questions, and is curious to see how Niederreiter fits with the Wild’s group of young players.

It turns out he fits nicely. The young guys on the roster all seem to get along. More importantly than that, they’re playing well, and playing together well. Coyle gets hurt early on, which could have been a huge blow, but it works out. Granlund has taken a huge step forward as a player since last year, and is handily centering the second line with Pominville and Niederreiter. Granlund and Pominville show some great chemistry, Granlund setting up Pominville for some beautiful goals. Niederreiter isn’t as much of a force in the scoring, but he adds some size and physicality to the line. The kid’s playing strong hockey, and whatever problems there were in Long Island haven’t popped up here. Niederreiter has a lot of potential, and the more Mike sees him play, the more he likes this trade for the Wild. Niederriter could be a part of their top six, playing alongside Granlund for a long time to come.

So chemistry. Yeah, about that. It’s an almost funny story, or well, it would be if Mike could tell it to anyone.

Mike’s talking to Koivu after morning skate. It’s after media availability, but Mike wanted to ask Koivu a few more questions about Granlund’s development for a feature, so they take the conversation into the hallway. It’s just a casual conversation, a couple quotes then chatting for a few minutes (off the record) about the new coffee place that’s opened up. They’ve been around each other enough that they’re friendly—not friends, it’s a professional relationship, but they’re friendly. And they both have other things to do with their day than talk to each other for too long. After a few minutes Mike heads down the hallway to get on with his day.

As a reporter, sometimes there’s nothing you can do to get the story you’re looking for. All your sources are quiet, nothing’s confirmed, no one’s talking on the record, there’s nothing to write. Sometimes a story you know is out there will be like a ghost. Then sometimes you just stumble into things.

Mike turns a corner. Granlund has Nino backed against the wall. They’re kissing. Granlund must be standing on his toes. 

Mike freezes for a half second, trying to decide if it would be better to clear his throat or turn around. They seem pretty absorbed in the kiss, he should just leave them to it. There are other routes up to the press box.

Mike passes Koivu again as he backtracks. Koivu nods in recognition, but he’s absorbed in a conversation with one of the trainers.

Mike doesn’t forget about it, but he has other things to worry about—a notebook for the paper, a post-practice blog, a flight to book, and it might be good to get an early start on his Sunday column. He’s busy. He can’t dwell on an incident that isn’t going to be a story.

He’s headed out of the X, in search of some fresh air and more coffee, when he gets ambushed by Mikko in the hallway. It might be a first, Mikko coming to talk to him instead of the other way round, certainly like this, with Mikko holding onto his arm and dragging him out of the way.

Mike really doesn’t know what’s going on, but he decides to play it calm. It’s never good to let Mikko think he’s getting to you.

Mike raises his eyebrows. “You got a scoop for me captain?”

“You’re looking for a scoop?” Mikko asks.

“Always,” Mike says, just like the good reporter he is.

There’s a sudden shift in mood that Mike hadn’t predicted. This isn’t banter any more, they aren’t joking. Mikko’s _mad._ Mike’s seen him mad before, and this might surpass any previous encounter.

“You’re not writing about Mikke and Nino,” Mikko says. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re not writing about it. They’re kids and…”

“God, what kind of hack do you think I am?” Mike asks, honestly offended. “I’m not going to out a couple of twenty-one-year-olds. That’s not my job. I cover _hockey. _”__

__Mikko actually takes a step back, like he isn’t sure what Mike’s going to do next._ _

__“They’re playing some really good hockey right now. Their line with Pominville has been great the past few games—better than your line actually. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”_ _

__It really doesn’t. It isn’t that Mike doesn’t care—just the opposite, he understands how important having an out player (or _players_ , if he had to make a guess about Parise and Suter’s future plans) would be to the league. It would be enormous, and it should happen the right way, in a controlled situation, intentionally. Him outing unsuspecting young players would be the opposite of helpful. It would bad, exploitive journalism._ _

__“If you didn’t realize that I’ve had opportunities where I could have outed someone before, then you don’t know your team all that well, _captain._ ” _ _

__Mike’s spitting mad. He puts up with a lot of shit doing this job, but he’s honestly offended that Mikko, who he’s had a good working relationship with for years, could think that Mike would stoop to that level._ _

__“I’ll do my job—writing about _hockey,_ and you do yours, and win some games.” Mike has to leave before he says something he regrets. _ _

__They don’t talk about it again. Mikko knows that Mike knows. Mike doesn’t know if Mikko talks to anyone else about it, if he lets Suter and Parise know about the situation. Mike hopes he tells Nino and Granlund to be more careful, and he hopes Mikko does it without yelling. They’re just kids. They were careless, and need to learn from this incident, but hopefully it doesn’t scare them away from whatever they’re doing. Mike doesn’t know them really, but they seem like sweet kids. He hopes they’re happy._ _

__

__& 1 _ _

__**Russo’s Rants**  
 _More Parise and Suter, practice updates_ _ _

__You’ll want to read the paper for the big feature on Zach Parise and Ryan Suter’s relationship. I’m sure you’ve seen the coverage of them being the first out couple in the NHL._ _

__HUGE news obviously, a ton of angles to write about, but also, this is a hockey team in the middle of its season, so there’s all that going on too. I’ve been running on pure espresso even more than usual this week keeping up with all of it._ _

__I’m going to clear up a few loose ends, then hopefully we can get on with our regular coverage?_ _

__Someone brought up the notebook I did after Sochi where I asked Parise and Suter about rooming together and they said they never had before. It didn’t make it in the feature, but apparently this was half true—they’d never been assigned roommates before. Suter joked that after he complained in the paper about Parise being messy he had to apologize or he’d have to sleep on the couch._ _

__Looking back, it’s obvious how carefully they managed what information about their private life was made available—just enough to not invite further questions._ _

__Obviously this story didn’t come out of the blue. The Wild knew that Parise and Suter were a couple before the signing was official. Some of the details of how that worked are in the article. I didn’t get the full scoop, but it involved lawyers and agents and non-disclosure agreements. Clearly the signing taking four days was about a lot more than indecision._ _

__USA Hockey knew about the two of them going into the Sochi games and still made them a part of the leadership core, still made Parise captain. And this was going into Russia, which was facing tons of criticism for their treatment of homosexuality. Retrospectively this looks like a huge vote of confidence in Parise’s leadership abilities._ _

__And no—don’t think you can use this as an argument that Parise should have the C instead of Koivu. For the last time, that isn’t happening._ _

__I can already tell you all aren’t going to let this go, but it is absolutely NOT a problem in the room. You can read in the paper but both the veterans and the kids are behind them._ _

__Pominville talked about how it was an awkward adjustment coming over at the trade deadline, because he knew he was missing something but couldn’t tell what it was. Then he got clued in and apparently things gelled._ _

__It’s funny—Graovac got called up last week, he’s played two games for the big club. He was getting some ribbing from the other young guys for apparently not picking up on what was happening. I’ve seen a few people beating themselves up for not even suspecting, but not even all the guys in the locker room had it figured it out. They worked very hard to keep this out of the public eye before now, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I wasn’t prepared when they made the announcement, though it wasn’t the most surprising moment of my career._ _

__Covering a team, sometimes there are things that you don’t write about for whatever reason. I’ve been a beat reporter for twenty years, and there’s been plenty of juicy color that never made the paper or online because it wasn’t said on the record, or wasn’t my story to share. There are always going to be storylines that you don’t know, and that I don’t know. Sometimes these get told years after the fact, sometimes they stay buried. People are entitled to some privacy off the ice. Plus it would be impossible to find out and report on every little thing._ _

__Buried in all the circus is the fact that the Wild have scored eight goals in their past six games. That they’re 3-1-2 is a credit to Kuemper playing lights out lately. They’ve got one more at home, then a tough California road trip coming up, and it would be good to have this sorted out before then._ _

__Parise’s one of the only ones scoring, so clearly the pressure isn’t getting to him. Maybe the rest of the team’s trying to stay out of his spotlight, ha._ _

__The Granlund line has had good chances in the past few, but haven’t put the puck in the net. With Haula out for the last few, Graovac hasn’t look TOO lost on the third line, but Yeo can’t be happy with the lack of offense generated. You have to wonder if he’ll move Coyle to center, even if that means breaking up his top line. Adjusting for that would actually ripple up and down the lines, which might be what the team needs._ _

__Haula has been skating with the strength and conditioning coach, but I still don’t think he’ll be ready to go before the roadtrip._ _

__The team wants to remain focused on what’s happening on the ice, and it couldn’t hurt for the rest of us to do that too._ _

__I’m getting bombarded by questions on twitter. A lot of you are ready to overreact. This is the BEST thing, it’s the WORST thing, it CHANGES EVERYTHING._ _

__Remember, this isn’t new—we just didn’t know. Parise and Suter have been together since day one with the Wild. Everything they’ve accomplished with this team—getting back to the playoffs, winning a series against the Avs, pushing the Blackhawks last year more than a lot of people thought they would._ _

__I’m not saying it isn’t important for the team or for the league or for all of us no matter what. Just remember that the only thing that changed is the addition of outside awareness—this is how things have been for a while._ _

__I have to pack before tonight’s game, leaving right after for California, so here’s hoping for a finish in regulation. There will be more on this going forward. I’ll probably blog after practice tomorrow, or follow me on twitter for up to the moment news._ _

**Author's Note:**

> If, like Bess, you are a completist who must know what every nickname refers to, in the 2nd section Bruno is Andrew Brunette.


End file.
